Ambalat, where the game nations play

Ambalat, where the game nations play

Bantarto Bandoro, Jakarta

The row between Indonesia and Malaysia over Ambalat has
dragged the military as well as diplomats from both sides into a
kind of a game where both are committed to defend their strategic
stakes. This is the second time that the two countries have been
involved in a high profile conflict, the first was during the
konfrontasi era in the 1960s.

Indonesia has sent seven navy frogmen to a small reef that
neighboring Malaysia has also claimed as its territory ( The
Jakarta Post On Line, March 14). For Indonesia, the deployment of
its naval force is perhaps meant to prevent unwanted action on
the part of Malaysia. The deployment, however, is in itself
inadequate as a substitute for more fundamental policies and
action: diplomacy.

Thus, what we are witnessing at the moment is a situation that
can trigger military escalation. In such a situation, the
military forces were in fact used for at least demonstration
purposes. In some situations, such as the 1962 Cuban missile
crisis, actual combat was averted. In other situation, however,
the crises developed into full-fledged war. The 1982 conflict
between Argentina and Britain over the Malvina or Falkland
Islands provide an example of a crisis escalating into armed
hostility.

Are we about to witness a war between Indonesia and Malaysia?
We are anxious to see what will eventually happen in the Ambalat
area. We are also particularly curious about how the two
governments would approach problem.

There are three alternatives the two sides can take to resolve
the dispute.

The first approach is known as the event-interaction approach.
It focuses on the exchange of action between the states involved
in a crisis.

The current Ambalat conflict started when Malaysia granted an
oil concession to foreign oil company, an action that prompted
Jakarta's strong diplomatic protest. As the situation developed,
we see is it both a real prelude to war and an approach to avert
war. By focusing on the flow of interaction between Kuala Lumpur
and Jakarta, one can determine patterns that lead to the
escalation or deescalation of conflict.

The second way of analyzing the Ambalat crisis is known as the
decision-making approach, which stresses the importance of the
perception and the manner in which the decision-makers perception
can affect the selection of policies. In this regard, the
situation in Ambalat is a special kind of situation for the
decision makers in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. It is different from
a normal situations as the official's perceive a high degree of
foreign threat and a feeling of urgency about the situation. In
such a situation, the decision makers from both sides may be apt
to make less rational or more belligerent decisions.

The third approach is called the mediated stimulus-response
approach, a combination of the first and second approach. In this
context, the foreign policy of Indonesia and Malaysia can be
viewed as cycles of stimuli and responses. The granting by
Malaysia of an oil concession, believed to be within Indonesian
national territory, to a foreign oil company, presented a
stimulus to Jakarta's officials, who then responded by deploying
military forces in the Ambalat and sending a diplomatic protest.

The Jakarta's action, in turn, presented a stimulus to the
Malaysian leaders to halt temporarily oil exploration and
announce its intention to solve the problem by way of diplomacy
as well intensifying their sea control. Here we see that the
actions of the governments in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur were
shaped -- or mediated -- by their respective decision making
process.

The conflict between Indonesia and Malaysia over Ambalat is
rooted in rivalry. At the regional level, there are instances
which reflect how both Indonesia and Malaysia are competing for
leadership. Both have a strong sense of being a great country,
particularly during the Soeharto and Mahathir leadership, the two
leaders played an important role in the stability and security of
the region.

As stated above, Indonesia and Malaysia have already become
involved in a game in Ambalat and consequently both have their
own strategies to win the game. From the Indonesian side, the
deployment of not so huge military forces is at least an
indication of its intention to deter any further actions by
Malaysia.

We can imagine also Indonesia and Malaysia in a kind of an
escalation ladder. The leaders in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur have
to realize that their relations over the Ambalat issue are just
like what Anatol Rapoport (1966) called a chicken game, with
leaders in both countries on a ladder of escalation and each
knowing that the other leader was thinking in the same way. The
nature of the Ambalat crisis, can be understood best by seeing
Indonesia and Malaysian as trying to manipulate, or dominate, the
ladder of escalation.

The key concept here is "escalation dominance", by which both
countries are able to control the crisis at any given rung on the
ladder. Examples of escalation dominance would include the
dominant sides (either Malaysia or Indonesia) having sufficient
force advantage at a given rung of the ladder, meaning that it
would lose least from any movement further up the ladder.

If both Indonesia and Malaysia are seen to be really involved
in a chicken type game, then there is no such thing as stable
cooperative equilibrium, because the best strategy against a
"chicken" is to play for a victory, and the best general strategy
is to issue threats so that the other will play "chicken". Yet,
since Malaysia or Indonesia may not believe that either of them
would carry out a threat of annihilation, the threats will be
ignored with mutually disastrous results.

This is actually the scenario that both leaders in Jakarta and
Kuala Lumpur have to avoid. Cooperation between Indonesia and
Malaysia is still possible in such a crisis, if the leaders of
the respective countries have sufficiently opportunity to meet
again in the future, so that they have a stake in their future
interaction.

Unrestrained rivalry between Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur,
however, should not prevent both sides from taking the following
steps: Prevent the breakdown of communication; avoid the tendency
to misperceive the action and intention of one's adversaries,
especially the tendency to exaggerate their hostility; and manage
the momentum of events.

By implication, more sound policies, greater self-control and
more effective policy management can help to prevent or contain
the conflict.

Although national leaders from Indonesia and Malaysia may at
one time, but hopefully not, be misguided in their policies, they
are not necessarily aggressive. They generally do not plan to
launch war on the basis of a cold-blooded calculation. Rather,
they blunder into war because they lose control of the situation.

The writer (bandoro@csis.or.id) is Editor of The Indonesian
Quarterly of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS). He is also a lecturer at the International Relations Post
Graduate Studies Program, Faculty of Social and Political
Science, University of Indonesia, Jakarta